First Person Singular


Brian
Rotman
argues
that
(one)
“mind”
and
(one)
“god”
are
 only
conceivable,
literally,
because
of
(alphabetic)
literacy,
which
 allowed
us
to
designate
each
of
these
ghosts
as
an
incorporeal,
speaker‐ independent
“I”
(or,
in
the
case
of
infinity,
a
notional
agent
that
goes
on
 counting
forever).
I
argue
that
to
have
a
mind
is
to
have
the
capacity
to
 feel.
No
one
can
be
sure
which
organisms
feel,
hence
have
minds,
but
it
 seems
likely
that
one‐celled
organisms
and
plants
do
not,
whereas
 animals
do.
So
minds
originated
before
humans
and
before
language
‐‐ hence,
a
fortiori,
before
writing,
whether
alphabetic
or
ideographic.